Failing the mock method return with arguments as Parameter

I am failing to write a Test because the answer of my when().thanReturn() is not returning anything. I am not able to mock the behavior (Setup is Spring Boot, Java 8, Junit 4).
The problem is that the Method being called is taking method References as a parameters:

List<PubSubMessage> findMessages(DateCheckerPredicate whichDateFunction, MessageRepoPredicate whichQueryToUse, int tableId) {
List<PubSubMessage> rulesToPublish = new ArrayList<>();
    List<Object> queryResult = whichQueryToUse.findObjects(tableName);
    if(queryResult != null) {
        queryResult.forEach(object -> {
            if(whichDateFunction.checkDates(object)) {
                rulesToPublish.add(new PubSubMessage(tableId, object.getId()));
            }
        });
    }
    return rulesToPublish;
}

Calling the method looks something like this:

public void methodToTest {
   List<PubSubMessage> messages = dao.findMessages(MessageDateChecker::msgCanBePublished, msgRepo::findMsgesToPublish, tableId);
}

where MessageDateChecker uses static "helper Methods" and msgRepo is a class which is annotated with Springs @Service and using jdbcTemplates to query the DB. And the class looks something like this:

private Dao dao;
private MsgRepo msgRepo;
@Autowired
public SomeService(Dao dao, MsgRepo msgRepo) {
   this.dao = dao;
   this.msgRepo = msgRepo;
}

The test setup looks something like this:

@Mock
private Dao dao;
@Mock
private MsgRepo msgRepo;
@InjectMock
public SomeService(dao, msgRepo)
private int tableId = 1;
private String tableName = "someTableName";


@Test
public void someTest() {
    List<PubSubMessage> list = new ArrayList<>();
    list.add(new PubSubMessage(tableId, 12));
    List<Object> objects = new ArrayList<>();
    objects.add(new Object(12, new Date(), null));
    when(dao.findMessages(MessageDateChecker::msgCanBePublished, msgRepo::findMessagesToActivate, tableId)).thenReturn(list);

   someService.methodToTest() //in here findRules is getting called()

   verify(someClass,times(1)).someMethod()
}

Like I mentioned above the when().thanReturn() should return the predefined list but when running the test, it always returns null. Does anyone can provide some help? Probably I need to do a better job mocking the method-references which are being passed at a parameter. But So far I am failing to do it right.

when(dao.findMessages(any(), any(), eq(tableId))).thenReturn(list);